Darting: Fort Smith Caregiver Offers Comfort, Help

Pam Cloud has been a feature writer for the Times Record since November 1997. Pam has won awards from the Arkansas Press Association for tourism coverage and feature writing and has received two Redbud Awards for coverage of travel opportunities in Oklahoma. A native of Stigler, Okla., Pam has a bachelor's degree in journalism from Oklahoma State University in Stillwater, Okla., and previously worked for at the Stigler News-Sentinel.

While that phrase should be overused, it’s often underused in our everyday conversations.

We should always care about others; after all, the Bible tells us to love our neighbors as ourselves.

And while we try, sometimes we fall short.

Danny Smith has been able to live up to that phrase.

He was trying to get a fountain working in the front yard of a home in a neighborhood near Ellsworth Road and Interstate 540 when I darted by.

I learned the 54-year-old had been in the employ of the family living there for the past couple of months as a home caregiver.

“I do yardwork, housework,” said Danny, the married father of three, grandfather of 10 and great-grandfather of three who lives between Fort Smith and Greenwood. “I do it all.”

After the man of the house died a couple of weeks ago, Danny has been making certain the widow takes all her medications, has something to eat and runs errands at the store.

A native of Kennett, Mo., Danny graduated from Piggott High School — “home of the Mohawks,” he said — in 1978 and came to the Fort Smith area in the 1980s. He attended what was then Westark College for a couple of years before receiving his degree in psychology and social work from the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville in 1986.

Danny, an avid bicyclist in his spare time, was a casualty of the Whirlpool shutdown, working for the company for 27 years before it closed its doors in 2012. During a layoff period while working there, he worked two jobs at two different area nursing homes, putting in 16 hours a day for six months.

After he was laid off from Whirlpool for good, he and his wife of 17 years cleaned houses, including the one where he now works. They got to know the family, and he was hired on as a private caregiver.

With his experience from the nursing homes, Danny is no stranger to caring for the elderly.

“You never know what kind of mood they’re gonna be in,” Danny said of the challenges caregivers often face, especially those caring for dementia patients. “It doesn’t bother me. If they take their medicine pretty regularly, it’s usually better.”

My family is no stranger to caring for the elderly either. Dad took care of others from the day he retired from his job more than 20 years ago. After working his last day at Oklahoma Natural Gas Co. one Friday in April 1993, he began driving Granny (his mother-in-law) to her dialysis treatments three days a week 30 miles away.

Granny died the following year, and we noticed Gramps was getting forgetful — not remembering where he put his truck keys or losing track of what day of the week it was. After he almost burned down his house from neglecting a pot of beans on the stove, Mom moved him into a mobile home at the back of their property.

We watched as Gramps was robbed of his mind and recent memories from Alzheimer’s disease, and Mom made the heart-wrenching-but-correct decision he would be safer in the local nursing home. Both Mom and Dad were faithful to visit every day, making certain to be there to feed him at lunch and dinner for several years after that part of his brain that recalled how to feed himself was gone.

Not long after Gramps’ death in 2004, Mom began having health problems. We later learned she had the same kidney disease Granny had. Dad was Mom’s primary caregiver, driving her to and from dialysis in Poteau, before her death in 2011.

For the past three years, Dad only has to care for himself . But there have been health issues, surgeries and hospitalizations that required me to help out at times, a task I gladly accept.

Since last August, my father-in-law has lived with my husband and me. And with that there are more doctor’s appointments, more procedures, more dialysis and medicine management.

But again, it’s a task we gladly accept. We feel blessed our fathers are still with us.

That doesn’t mean it’s not without its challenges at times. I admire and respect those who care for others, whether a family caregiver, volunteer caregiver or a paid employee who cares for someone. It takes compassion, love and a whole lot of patience.

So to Danny and all the other caregivers who spend hours each day making certain another has everything they need and a smile on their face, thank you for all you do and the difference you make in the lives of those in your care. I truly believe there will be a special place in heaven for caregivers.

Will the weather continue to be spring-like during next week’s travels? We’ll see as I head to the south side of Fort Smith in the neighborhoods around Bryn Mawr and Brooken Hill. Danny’s dart toss landed there, so that’s where I’m darting next.